Chapter 26
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Luna
I don't think I've slept this well for the past two years.
Roman's body is pressed against mine, and when I open my eyes and see his sleeping face, my heart starts to double in size.
Last night after the bubble bath, he took me back to bed, where I fell asleep instantly. I woke up in the middle of the night with his head between my legs again, and after he made sure he'd wrung another orgasm from me, he lay down beside me as if nothing had happened.
My face is again red as a lobster, and right then I see him opening his eyes.
"You know it's weird to spy on me while I sleep," he tells me in that hoarse voice that gives me butterflies in my stomach.
"Your ego is too big. I was admiring the blackheads on your nose," I tell him, but I burst out laughing because this man has no imperfections.
"What blackheads?" he asks, confused.
"Oh, you have no idea. There are so many. Now that I've seen them, I don't know if I can look at you the same way."
He pulls me toward him then, and his head goes to the base of my neck and presses his lips there.
"Hmm, if I kiss you here will you forget about those blackheads?" he asks, and I feel I would forget about anything if he continues kissing me like this.
"I think we can negotiate something," I tell him, though my voice is weak.
He smirks against my skin.
A phone rings and I know that's the signal to return to reality. Roman makes a sound of frustration while reaching toward the nightstand.
"Yes, Anton," he answers and for a few seconds just listens to his report. "I'll be there in an hour."
?
When we go down for breakfast, Victoria barely exchanges a few words with us. I know she's not directly angry at us but at the situation, but it reminds me how much I've turned her life upside down. All this drama is because of me, and here she is, just starting to grow into herself. Of course she wants freedom, wants to be normal, hang out with friends.
In the afternoon, I ask Sergey to take me to Victoria’s ballet studio as a pretext to invite her to the cafe next door. I know the small studio and that next to it is a perfect cafe, where Sergey and Goran can watch us while Victoria can get out of her home-school-ballet-home routine a bit.
In the car with me are Sergey and Vlad, one of the soldiers who normally patrols the house.
The drive is relatively short, and I try to enjoy the music on the radio and get to know Sergey better.
"How long have you been working for Roman?"
Unlike Anton, Sergey is dark-haired with brown eyes. I think he's six feet four inches tall, and judging by how his muscles show through the turtleneck he's wearing, I'd say he works out twice a day. There's a weathered look about him - those deep lines carved into his face make me think he's got a few years on me, might even be older than Roman.
"Fifteen years," he says with a sense of pride in his tone.
"How old are you, if I'm not being rude?" I'm glad to see he doesn’t seem bothered by my questions.
"Thirty-seven years old, soon to be thirty-eight," he answers, and I nod.
"Do you think Devin will come after me?" I continue, and I know it's a stupid question, but somehow I hope his answer will be different from the one in my head.
"The problem with Devin isn't just your fault, Luna. It's an old issue that would have exploded anyway. But to answer you, yes. I think he'll come and not just after you—"
But he doesn't get the chance to say anything more because suddenly the car skids on the street.
"What was that?" I ask, my heart in my throat.
"Someone's trying to push us off the road," Vlad answers, and I see Sergey calling someone, but my attention is in the mirror, watching the car trying to force us off track. A black SUV stays glued to the back of our car.
"We're under attack. We’re ten minutes from the ballet studio," Sergey says in a clipped voice, but whatever he says next is drowned out by the noise of shattering windows as someone shoots at us.
From the side, I feel the car's impact and although the seat belt holds me in place, the car flips over.
"Damn it!" I hear from the left.
The seat belt bites into my shoulder and chest, each breath a struggle against its unyielding grip. As the car lurches to a stop, my lungs burn, desperate for air that comes in shallow gasps through clenched teeth, but I manage to breathe. That's good.
"Luna, look at me," I hear, and although everything's blurry, I raise my head toward Sergey, who now has a look full of dread.
"They're going to take you, and I need you to have this with you."
He puts a switchblade in my hand, or at least that's what I think it is. I don't get to respond before he pulls out his gun and starts to shoot at the car that flipped us.
Vlad also pulls out his gun and shoots at an individual who just got out. I can't clearly see how many there are, but I know for sure that Vlad and Sergey are outnumbered. We're still at the edge of the city, and although there's light traffic, nobody stops.
Obviously.
Panic takes hold of me again as I see Sergey trying to take cover beside the car. He has no chance against all the attackers.
I hear Vlad's scream, and I know he's been shot. I need to get out of this car.
I undo my seat belt and fall awkwardly to one side, pain blooming in my shoulder, but I ignore it and open the door to get out when I hear voices from the other side.
"I want her whole, understood?"
Clearly I'm the one they want. I have nowhere to run. I'm in a field, and if they see me, surely one of them will run after me.
I look for my phone, knowing I only have a few seconds, so I call the only person whose voice I want to hear right now.
Just as Sergey said, I know I'll be taken, but I want to hear his voice for one second before they take me. He answers on the first ring.
"I’m coming, Luna," he answers, his voice cracking with anxiety and helplessness. The raw emotion in his tone breaks the dam, and tears flood silently down, caught in my throat, too tight to make a sound.
In the chaos, Sergey fires at the SUV while bullets and shouts pierce the air from the other side.
"You'll find me." The whisper comes out fragile and more of a question than a certainty. His answer, the last thing I register before rough hands tear the phone away and hurl it into the field, burns my memory like a promise.
"Always."
I don't use Sergey's switchblade. Not yet. The man who grabbed me takes me toward a car parked in the empty field. I don't struggle, I don't try to escape. I need to keep calm and try to find a solution.
Come on, Luna! Input data, output data. That's what you do all day. You find a way to process information for a desired outcome.
When I turn my head, I see Sergey fighting with a giant, and his blood-covered face is the incentive I need.
They won't kill me. At least let me cause some damage before they take me. I knew from the start that 'whole' doesn't mean unharmed, but I can't let Sergey be killed without trying to help him.
The guy gripping my hand hasn't searched me, probably considers me harmless.
The next man is at a considerable distance; if I run, I have a chance to put a few yards between us. Without hesitating further, I take the switchblade from my pocket, open it, and in an instant plunge it into the liver area of the guy holding my hand.
His scream pierces the air, but I'm already running toward Sergey. I had the presence of mind to pull out the blade before running, to have at least one weapon with me.
The giant who's about to disfigure Sergey doesn't seem to be paying attention to what's happening around him because he doesn't notice me until I jump on his back and stab the blade into his right shoulder.
For a few seconds, I could swear the man didn't even feel that I stabbed him, so I painfully pull out the blade and stab again.
Now, my shoulder is the one screaming in pain. The car accident definitely did some damage, and the fact that I'm hanging with a knife from a mountain of a man's back isn't helping.
After the blade enters the same wound for the second time, the giant turns, making a sound that could be pain or anger.
Sergey tries to mumble something, and I manage to tell him to run while I move away from the seven-foot monster who seems ready to crush me under his feet.
Of course Sergey doesn't react like a normal person. He pulls out his gun and, with a trembling hand, shoots the colossus, who could tear me in half with his bare hands.
Everything happens in seconds. Hands grab me and I start struggling, but when I feel a gun at the base of my neck, I straighten up and the fight goes out of me.
They could shoot me right now. All the adrenaline abandons me, leaving me exhausted, my knees shaking.
Another SUV revs up the road, screeching to a stop. Its doors open, and out jump a woman with a machine gun, dressed in combat gear, and a masked guy throwing grenades.
Am I dreaming? This can't be happening to me, being run off the road and now literally being bombarded.
The woman starts firing the machine gun, and the hands that were holding the gun to my head suddenly disappear. When I look back, the attacker has taken off running. The grenades thrown by the masked man start exploding, and I get down, curled up, trying to cover my ears with my hands. I feel like my eardrums are going to explode from the screams, explosions, and bullets.
"COME WITH ME!"
The woman's voice resonates and something in her tone sets me in motion. I don't know who she is, but I know she's shooting the people who attacked us. I see her coming toward me and I turn toward Sergey, but with all the explosions and mayhem, I can't spot him anywhere.
"It's you they want, Luna. If you're not here, they'll leave. Come on!" she shouts at me, and I don't miss that she used my name.
Who the hell is this woman?
"Luna!"
The urgency in her voice is clear. Whoever these people are who ran us off the road, they'll have backup soon.
The masked guy is already at the SUV's wheel when I get in, and I just pray I haven't made a mistake putting my trust in these people.
"Are you hurt?" the woman asks and seems genuinely concerned.
"My shoulder's killing me," I tell her and try to breathe through the stabbing pain that pierces me when I try to move it even an inch.
"May I?" she asks.
I look into her honey-colored eyes, and although I doubt my ability to detect if a person is good or not, there's something in her gaze that makes me calm for a second.
I give her a quick nod because at this point even breathing becomes harder. Clearly something broke during the accident.
The woman beside me pushes my hoodie aside and...fuck. My shoulder looks bad.
"Your shoulder is dislocated."
I guessed that from how it looks. And I know it needs to be reset. From the woman's look, she realizes this too. How the hell I managed to stab two men with my shoulder like this, I have no idea. Fear and terror of being taken replaced the pain in those moments.
"Do it," I whisper and close my eyes because I expect it won't be gentle.
I don't feel anything for a few seconds so I reopen my eyes. Her warm gaze finds mine. I swear I see a trace of pride? Respect? But in the next second, a sharp pain resonates in my shoulder and I realize it's over. She set my shoulder back in place.
"Better not to expect it," she tells me and with that returns to her place.
"I need to call someone," I tell her, and this is the moment when we'll find out if I made the right choice coming with them.
What else could I do? Stay put when I knew very well those attackers didn't have good intentions for me?
"When we get to safety, I promise you can call whoever you want," she answers.
We drive for what feels like an hour, and all the adrenaline has left my body. I'm damn exhausted and would give anything for a mattress and a blanket.
When we finally stop, I realize I'm in front of a house in the middle of a forest. Where the hell are we? My breath forms small clouds from how cold it is outside, and the smell of wet earth and pine floods my senses.
"Come with me, please," the woman tells me, and I follow. I'm not tied up, and when I look around, I see a small group of soldiers who approach when they see us getting out of the car. The fact that no one touches me offers some comfort.
Entering the house, I try to memorize as many details as possible. It resembles those Nordic houses you see in pictures online, A-frame, with floor-to-ceiling windows, but I notice the ceiling cuts off abruptly, indicating the attic doesn't continue with the same windows I see.
The interior is one large space with desks, couches, computers, and a kitchenette separated by a concrete island. It has an industrial style, and when I turn around, my focus locking on the twenty computers lined up in this room, I realize this whole thing most likely has to do with me and not Roman.
The sound of footsteps wakes me from my reverie, and when I turn my head, I'm sure my expression is one of shock as a cry of surprise escapes me. My gaze falls on the same gray eyes I've been thinking about the whole car ride. Except these don't reflect the affection and adoration I know. In these eyes I see only coldness and indifference, and if it weren't for the face sprinkled with small scars and the different haircut, I would have thought it wasn't real.
"I wouldn't have wanted us to meet like this, but we need to have a discussion without my brother intervening," he tells me, and my intuition has me looking at this man in terror.
In my head all I hear is: Holy fuck, Roman has a twin brother.